


Waking Up

by littlewonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death In Dream, Drug Use, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Love Confessions, M/M, Major Character Injury, Marriage Proposal, Suicide Attempt, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 02:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16986120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlewonder/pseuds/littlewonder
Summary: After dreaming the events of Sherrinford, John wakes in hospital, to find Sherlock at his side. They talk about his dream.





	Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to tumblr](https://isitanylittlewonder.tumblr.com/post/156681268229/my-go-at-the-john-wakes-up-fic)

“I may just be an idiot on the ground…”

He could hear crying.

“But I’m here. Open your eyes… please, John…“

Sherlock is the first thing John sees, his eyes sparkling, looking lost and afraid, curls a mess around his head, and jaw still unshaved. His cuts have been cleaned, but not yet healed. 

So that part was real, then? thought John. He really did almost die on drugs?

“Sherlock,” he manages.

Sherlock cups his face in his hands, fear flashing away to be replacing the most relieved, loving expression John’s ever seen.

“I thought I was losing you,” said Sherlock. “You almost died, John. I couldn’t bare it if…” Long lashes clamp his eyes shut, and silver tears sneak down under them. John is enraptured by their beauty, but even more wrenched at their meaning.

“I’m here, Sherlock, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I thought you were going to die…”

“You saved me,” said John. He closed his eyes. Save my life…

“It looked like you’d never wake up,” he heard Sherlock sob.

Before my doom. 

“Why would you do that, John, why?” 

Save my soul…

“Why would you try to… kill yourself?”

Seek my room.

“What –?” John’s eyes snapped open. “I didn’t.”

“Your therapist was there, she told me,” said Sherlock. “You pulled a gun on her and then turned it on yourself. She was terrified, you locked her in a closet.”

“No, no, I didn’t. It was Euros.”

“Who’s Euros?”

John looked at Sherlock in alarm. “Your sister!”

“I don’t have a sister, John.”

“No, you do, both she and Mycroft told me about her… Emotional context. It destroys you every time,” John repeated the words, closing his eyes in despair. He didn’t want to do that to Sherlock. 

Sherlock was staring now. “What… did you see?” he asked, his usual intensity softened by the wet plea in his eyes and the hesitation in his voice.

“What?”

Sherlock repeated the question, a little firmer.

“That’s what she said,” answered John. “That’s what she told me. You, actually. It was like something out of a horror movie… She was at this facility, at Sherrinford, an island called Sherrinford. She took control of it, she was testing us. You,” he corrected himself.

“Us,” said Sherlock. “We’re family.”

“You said that,” said John. “Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before we went there. Mycroft tried to get rid of me, and you defended me.”

“He tried to pull the plug on you. I made him stop.”

“How long ago?”

“A month,” said Sherlock. “They thought you’d never wake up. And if you ever did…”

“That I wouldn’t be the same?” asked John. “Well, I don’t feel different… But Sherlock, do you really think that, that we’re family? We’re best friends, but it’s not like we’re married or anything. 

“Do you want to be?”

John had to pause, to really register that remark. “Are you proposing?”

“Oh, no, believe me. I’ll be much more dramatic when I ask.”

“You will?” asked John. “As in, future?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, as if berating himself. Then his eyelids softened. “Unless you don’t want me to.” He didn’t open them. Couldn’t bare to, it seems.

“Sherlock, look at me.” He did so, slowly. “There’s nothing wrong with tender, over dramatic. And I do want you to.”

Sherlock broke out in a nervous fit of giggles. He was crying, too. “After everything I’ve been through, waiting for you to wake up…”

“I know.”

“I told you I loved you, when you were under. I didn’t think you heard me.”

“I didn’t,” said John. “Well, I did, but I didn’t understand what you meant. I didn’t think… you could mean me.”

“Of course I meant you. There’s never been anyone else.”

“No one? Not even –“

“No,” Sherlock said. “No one.” He paused. “We deserved this, didn’t we? I should’ve told you long before now.” 

John grinned. “Yes you should’ve.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Sherlock startled, looking into John’s earnest face, at his complete lack of hesitation. Then they both broke into giggles.

“Tell me what happened to me? When you found me, after I was shot.”

“Oh John…”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to. It’s just, in my dream… there were these phrases I remember. ‘I am lost without your love,’ and, ‘save my life before my doom,’ and… ‘save my soul, seek my room.’”

Sherlock’s eyes were like wells filled to the top with water, about to burst. But they remained steady, level.

“I did save your life…” said Sherlock. “I am lost without your love, and I did seek your room. Here, 702.”

“How did you react when you saw me?”

“I went mad, John. I had completely lost control. If she hadn’t been locked in that closet, I might have turned murderous.”

John’s eyes blew out in shock. “And what did you do?”

“The wound… I examined you, the wound didn’t seem to be anywhere vital.”

“Where was it then?”

“The thing is, you’re a doctor, if you really did try to kill yourself, you would know exactly where to shoot yourself to get the job done.”

“Sherlock, if you’re about to say it was surgery –“

“Well, it was!”

“And I told you, I didn’t try to kill myself! Why would I do that? It was her, I swear to you it was her.”

“Then I should have killed her.”

“No, Sherlock, you shouldn’t. Come on, Sherlock, look at me.” His gaze flicked up into John’s, his eyes like bullets, determined to bury into him. It was hard to return his gaze, for his body to resist being paralysed by them. “You… did the right thing, alright?”

Sherlock nodded, still not tearing his gaze away.

“You did the right thing…” John sucked in a breath. “You still haven’t told me where she shot me, though.”

“She shot you between your brain and your eye. So much that could’ve happened to you, you’re lucky not to be permanently damaged. And alive,” said Sherlock.

“So where did it go?” asked John.

Sherlock pressed his finger just above John’s right eyebrow. “Oh, just into the skull. No harm done. Of course, the pain and the shock did knock you out for a bit.” 

“And you found me like that?”

“I found you still conscious,” said Sherlock. “When I discovered you, I ran in the room as soon as I saw you was on the ground, bleeding into the carpet. I called the ambulance, then Mycroft. I tried whatever I could to staunch the blood flow, but it kept coming. So I laid your head in my lap and bunching up the fabric, pressed it to your head. I talked to you, told you I loved you for the first time. I’ve told you many times since, as I sat with you here, waiting for you to wake up…”

There was so much he could’ve said. What he actually said shocked Sherlock more than any of it. “I love you too.”

There was the unspoken question, but both of them already knew the answer. And it didn’t matter now. They didn’t have to ask it to know that they loved each other, always had. And how could Sherlock not have known, all the evidence was there, he’d just chosen not to see it. And why?

Because he was afraid. Afraid that, somehow, he really couldn’t trust the evidence of his eyes, afraid that he was all wrong and John really didn’t love him back. But most of all, afraid to take the risk. Afraid to expose himself for what he really was, a man in love with his best friend. Vulnerable, and raw, and soft. He was still afraid of his own weakness.

He didn’t have to be afraid anymore. “I love you,” Sherlock repeated. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” It seemed he couldn’t stop confessing.

“Yeah, I know, I heard you the first time.”

Sherlock grinned and John smiled back.

“You’re gorgeous,” John said. “And I don’t deserve you.”

“No,” said Sherlock, “you’ve got it the other way around. It’s me who’s never been worthy of your love.”

“You are worthy,” said John. “Even if you are a bit of a cock sometimes, I still love you. The only thing I ever blamed you for was not being by my side. I need you, Sherlock. All these years, I couldn’t imagine life without you. Don’t want to.”

“I suppose now you won’t have to,” said Sherlock. “Unless one of us dies.”

“Don’t,” said John, closing his eyes so that his tears slipped out, shaking his head. “Don’t make me think of that. I couldn’t imagine…”

Sherlock took his hand. “Then let’s talk about something else. Tell me what you dreamed about.”

John told him everything, the whole story. And in return, Sherlock told his own story: how he had been so hopped up on drugs after the event, that he’d re-written the whole story. How Mycroft had stepped in, and Bill Wiggins had stepped in, to try to help him recover. How they had told him that Mary had never died, or been shot at all, how it had been John. How Culverton had messed with his mind, how he had hallucinated John using the memories he had of John, of when they hugged, of when they’d fought, and combined them with the worst kinds of self-hatred so that he’d actually convinced himself that John hated or blamed him for anything else that happened.

That was the part John just couldn’t believe, and he told him so. But then again, he’d done the same thing in his own dream.

John had to ask. “Are you still high now?”

“No,” Sherlock answered. “Mycroft forced me off the drugs. He told me our bargained time was almost up. He told me everything. He said it was time to say goodbye.”

“Well, I’d hate to disappoint your brother –“

Sherlock broke out into laughter.

“–but I suppose I surprised you all.”

“Best surprise I could’ve ever hoped for,” said Sherlock with a smile.

John grasped his hand and smiled back. “No shit, Sherlock.”


End file.
